


what strange creatures

by afearsomecritter (jsaer)



Series: harrowed clayton [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series), UnDeadwood (Web Series)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gore, Harrowed!Clayton, Long Lost/Secret Relatives, M/M, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:21:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22313197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jsaer/pseuds/afearsomecritter
Summary: In which Reverend Matthew Mason runs into some familiar faces.
Relationships: Reverend Matthew Mason/Clayton Sharpe
Series: harrowed clayton [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1606087
Comments: 19
Kudos: 74





	what strange creatures

**Author's Note:**

> finally finished this whoop whoop

\---

These are the things Francis "Fred" Monahan learns about the town of Deadwood after she rolls into it on a painted coach with her brother Joseph with bottles of cure-alls rattling behind them in cases:

Everyone is a goddamn asshole.

They're about as careful with their dead as folks down by Virginia.

And their rumor mill cranks on overtime and may run on moonshine by the sheer absurdity of the whoppers she's heard. 

(like the dead rising like spring weeds and how there'd been that raven that talked like a person a few weeks back and that someone's seen some sort of great serpent in the woods a few hours away but some of Swearengen’s lot were taking care of it-) 

People out here had to entertain themselves somehow, she supposes.

\--

Even the local priest has a menagerie of rumors, ranging from being friendly with the local whores (some even insist that ain't a euphemism and he's actually friends with them) to having summoned holy fire from his hands to burn down the vengeful dead.

She's almost impressed, the man must be quite the character- or con artist.

(shit like how the reverend is handy with a shotgun and that's he's a quiet, kind man unless you get him riled is something that hasn't made it to her ears yet. after all, folks have to make their entertainment around here somehow)

\--

She and her brother are in town to peddle their wares-well she is, he’s the deterrent and the bookkeeper. They’ve only been run out of towns twice so far, a rousing success as far as she’s concerned. 

Miracle cures and elixirs and tonics (alcohol and cannabis and laudanum), it’ll make you feel better if nothing else. Not a sales pitch but a promise.

Offering miracles can be a bit awkward with a priest in town, but she’s not seen hide nor hair of this one, seemed to be gone from Deadwood, at least for a time. 

(not long at all)

\--

People watching is a habit of hers, to know the haves and have nots, the needy and the glutted and who may be pressed or cajoled into purchasing her wares. 

Saloons make for excellent places to practice this habit. She notices when the odd group comes in, of course. Two men, one much taller than average, and two women in trousers, all looking a bit battered. She only half pays them any mind, too busy listening carefully to the fella a few tables down yowling on and on about his health issues and debating which of the miracle elixirs she could foist on him. 

Joseph is eyeing her whiskey, and she eyes him right back until he takes a playful swipe at it, and then-

“You still owe me an extra round for last week!” Says the echo of a teenage boy, grown into a man's voice. 

Fred glances over and her baby brother is half leaning out of a chair and getting a friendly cussing out as one of the women she'd seen earlier stalks to the bar.

(the dead walk in deadwood and she’d thought it was a joke)

Joseph sees whatever expression is frozen on her face and follows her gaze and-

\---

Clayton Sharpe got shot in the heart.

Clayton Sharpe got shot in the heart _again_ , and it hurts like a motherfucker but he ain’t gonna die of it (can’t). Miriam already cussed him out for not being careful between Matthew’s steady stitching but the mother henning hasn’t let up, and he finds himself bundled into the corner of the corner table at the Gem Saloon. 

(some little needy part of him enjoys the fussing, and would miss it when-if it stopped)

The corner seat gives him a damn good view of the room and shitty view of him from the room so he's none too bothered by this arrangement. 

Matthew and Arabella are squinting at a game of backgammon Miriam had dug up somewhere before foisting it on the two and declaring that looser paid for drinks.

(none of them play at cards much, these days)

So he's fiddling with an empty shot glass and watching little tiles click across the board as Arabella inches closer to what Clayton thinks is defeat when his eye lands on a pair at a nearby table.

Brother and sister, he decides after watching for a few moments, noting the easy way the woman bats away the man's attempts to snatch at her whiskey and the exaggerated playful pout on the man's face. They actually look oddly familiar, but not in the way that sets any alarms ringing. 

He's still trying to figure out where he knows the woman's sharp nose and dark eyes from when Arabella stands, exaggeratedly stomping off to buy the next round. Matthew leans awkwardly out from his chair with a huge grin to call out something sure to rile her further that Clayton never hears because the pair look over at the noise. 

The woman goes utterly rigid, staring at Matthew’s profile. The man beside her glances at her in concern before following her eyeline and then he goes wide eyed.

The man says the wrong name in a shattered voice and terror spikes up Clayton’s spine, hand on his pistol _no no no not again-_

\--

“Issac?”

\--

(the first thing he learned was not to respond to a name. he’d had no cause to forget to respond to a voice)

\--

He looks because the voice sounds familiar. 

He looks because he feels Clayton go rigid and staring next to him, sees Miriam’s knuckles go white around a whiskey glass.

He looks and he regrets it.

\--

“Joseph? Freddie?"

\--

Matthew sounds gut punched and isn’t moving and the woman is snarling-

“Fifteen fucking years and nothing more'n a letter from some brass pin from Fort Collins sayin’ you _deserted_ and you 'Freddie’ me-” she sends her chair clattering to the floor as she stands and strides around the table toward them. 

Matthew goes sheet white and Clayton starts to draw his pistol because he’s never seen that expression on Matthew’s face before. 

(he'd guessed about shed names but never asked-)

The other man is watching Matthew like he expects him to vanish between one blink and the next as he follows his sister over.

“Where the fuck-” the woman starts, hands slapping down on the table and Matthew actually recoils and Clayton shifts-

“Hello, dear,” Miriam interjects, “Maybe a round of introductions may suit before you go tearing into our dear friend here?” Her polite smile has something brittle and sharp around the edges, and Arabella is now watching from the bar, keeping out of the pair’s line of sight.

Matthew startles like he’d forgotten either of them were there. Clayton has never seen him this rattled and he fucking showed up at this man's door covered in dirt from his own grave.

(seen him walk up to a snake demon to shoot it, seen him stare down the dealer, seen him stitch himself up with steady hands that are shaking now)

Fred’s expression is cold and her teeth are half bared and Clayton abruptly realizes why the pair of them look so familiar.

“Introductions?” She snaps, half incredulous. “Fine. Fred Monahan,” She gestures sharply to the man next to her, “Joseph, brother.” She glares at Matthew, “and you, 'dear' idiot brother. What the _fuck?_ ”

\--

The world is slowly tilting and his ears are ringing and what’s wrong with him he should be happy two of his siblings were here and fine and alive and grown and _here_ -

And oh no Clayton is shifting in that way he does where everything around him goes cold and dangerous and attention grabbing-

\--

“Introductions?” Fred repeats, transferring her basilisk stare to Claytona and Miriam. It’s slightly unnerving to see Matthew’s ‘about to fuck shit up’ expression in someone else’s face but it’s pulling attention from Matthew and his still too pale face. The brother is still watching with an unreadable expression. 

“Clayton Sharpe,” he tips his hat, and doesn’t move his other hand from his pistol. 

“Miriam Landisman.”

“Arabella Livingston,” Arabella says from behind the pair, smiling with all her teeth bared, “Shall we all sit down and discuss this like civilized folks?”

Joseph visibly jerks in surprise, which has poor implications about his survival rates in this town. 

“Or at the very least somewhere a bit less public,” Miriam offers, giving some nearby onlookers a smile that has them hastily looking away. 

Fred Monahan looks them all over, noting bruises and dirt and the way neither Clayton nor Miriam have both hands visible. He can see her catching on to the slowly growing bubble of stillness too.

"...very well."

\--

Joseph is stewing, Fred can see it. 

They're following this weird lot down the street to somewhere less crowded than the saloon. They might be headed for the church, which must be empty in this town. 

The shock and joy had worn away on him, and old anger is swelling back up.

Fred's own chest is a vise of rage and twisted grief and relief she doesn't want to fucking feel right now so when she sees Joseph abruptly grab and spin Isaac for what's going to be a nasty hit to the face she doesn't try to stop him.

Something glints in Isaac’s hand.

There’s a gun leveled at Joseph’s chest. 

There’s a gun pointing at her baby brother’s heart, and her long dead other baby brother is holding the gun. 

The scene lasts long enough to burn itself into her memory before Isaac flinches violently, pistol yanking up and away like he’d just touched a hot stove.

Joseph stays frozen, fist still raised and other hand dropping away from where he’d grabbed Isaac to pull him around. 

Isaac has gone sickly pale, and one of his friends, the fella in the hat-Sharpe- moves slowly into Isaac’s view, between him and Joseph. He doesn’t have his hands raised, just clearly visible and relaxed and Fred can see Isaac’s eyes flicker to them and then back to Sharpe’s face. 

“Where are you, Matty?” Sharpe says, fully blocking Isaac’s view of Joseph. 

-

_Where are you, Izzy? Fred hears,_ from childhood games of hide and seek and echoing in fields and a strangled whisper into a well creased letter-

-

“Matthew,” Sharpe says again, firm. “Where are you?”

(who’s matthew?)

“Deadwood,” Isaac says, looking down and away and holstering his gun, deliberately moving his hand away. “I’m fine, Clayton.”

“Well if you need to shoot someone-”

“ _Clayton,_ ” Ms Landisman snaps, even as Isaac wheezes out a slightly hysterical laugh. Ms Livingston (where had she heard that name before?) snorts a laugh into her gloved hand. 

-

Joseph glances over his shoulder at her and they share a glance of terrified confusion. It had been said like a joke but-

The man hadn’t moved from between Isaac and Joseph either. 

(on further reflection she’s not actually sure who he was protecting, but she feels like the answer wasn’t joseph)

Fred stumbles forward from where shock had rooted her to the ground and she drags Joseph back a few steps. Isaac's dark eyes follow the movement briefly then he looks away again.

(he'd pulled a gun on his _brother_ )

"Let's head to the Reverend's place, shall we?" Ms Livingston says, "It's quiet and I know you," she shoots a pointed look at Isaac, "were bleeding but an hour ago and there's clean bandages there."

Fred blinks. "How do you know that? And he nearly just shot Joseph! Are we just not discussing that?"

"Oh I volunteer at the church," Ms Livingston says airily just as Isaac says "I apologize, it won't happen again, shouldn't have happened at all."

His voice is rough and low, stiff and politely formal. He's not looking at either of their faces.

She looks over to Joseph, who's watching Isaac with the same sort of expression he's given feral dogs he decided he wanted to keep. 

_Oh hell_ , Fred thinks, and grief swells in her throat when she realizes she'd actually forgotten Isaac was-is younger than Joseph.

"Just don't do it again," Joseph says gruffly, shaking off the lingering shock. "To the Reverend's place, you said?" 

"Yes," Ms Livingston says, "it's just above the church."

\----

"Hey Freddie, maybe you'll get to meet that preacher you've heard so much about."

Matthew almost doesn't hear his brother (big brother jospeh he's still so goddamn tall and easy smile back on his face and kind heart isaa-matthew had nearly put a _hole in_ ) through the ringing in his ears. He has a brief moment to be confused and then Fred (the eldest and the shortest, she hasn't grown taller just sharper) snorts.

“Supposedly this priest hangs around some modern day Lazarus, so I don’t put much stock in that nonsense.”

Matthew chokes, and Clayton tips his hat slightly when Fred glances over at the noise. 

Matthew abruptly realizes that his sister has no idea they mean him when they say the Reverend, and that he hasn't actually introduced himself. His leather coat and old shirt and waistcoat he wears on the kind of jobs they just came back from suddenly feel like a lie. 

(don't want to get that cloth of yours dirty and he knows it's meant literally but sometimes he thinks -)

"Uh," Matthew says. Fred raises an eyebrow and Matthew decides he'll just wait until they're inside.

Fred, quick as ever, doesn't take until they get inside.

\----

It takes Isaac unlocking the door to the Reverend's place above the church with the easy way a man opens the door to his home for the pieces to click together. 

" _You're_ the fucking Reverend?!"

Fred hears "I-" and an _ooof_ behind her on the stairs and turns in time to see Ms Livingston withdrawing her elbow from Sharpe's side. 

She dismisses them and turns back to find Isaac already inside.

\---

She walks into a home.

She wasn’t expecting that, somehow. 

(it would've been better if it was clearly temporary if it was just a place to sleep if it meant he hadn't made a place to _stay_ )

All of the furniture looks second or third hand but comfortable all the same. There are strange looking tomes crowding a poorly handmade bookshelf, a worn blue rug in the kitchen. Knickknacks and detritus of daily life scattered across the room.

The strangers file around her where she stands frozen near the door, comfortable with the space and with the stranger her brother grew into, where he stands awkwardly in the middle of the room.

\--

Sharpe makes a beeline for the kitchen while the women drop themselves onto one of the sofas with careless familiarity. Sharpe is rustling around the cabinets the same way, pulling out a tin of coffee. 

Joseph steps up behind her, looming in a deeply comforting way.

For her at least. 

“Would you like to sit?” Ms Landisman offers, gesturing at the other sofa as Isaac just sort of hovers between the two pieces of furniture. 

They sit. Isaac looks like he’s going to continue to hover uselessly before Ms Landisman pointedly notes he should fetch some chairs from the kitchen for himself and Sharpe. 

“Ah, yes, right.” The kitchen is a mere dozen feet away, and she sees Sharpe gently bump into him as he picks up one of the chairs. Isaac’s shoulder’s drop, just a bit. 

There's a moment of silence after Isaac settles into one of the chairs. 

“We got the letter notifying us of your desertion," Joseph rumbles, because her dear brother is a sledgehammer of a man when it comes to conversations. 

-

(run home, isaac, she used to plead, staring at still crisp paper)

-

"Oh," Isaac breathes. The exhalation lands with a thud, heavy with-she doesn't want to call it grief.

“Yes, I...I ran, during an attack during the night. Noises like nothing I’d ever heard, men coming back bleeding out in the saddle...I’m still ashamed, of course, I don’t-I’m not trying to offer excuses-”

"What attack?" Fred snaps. 

She’d read that letter, over and over, looking for a lie for anything as to why her baby brother had vanished into thin air one night and there’d been no mention of battle. Hell from what she’d heard Fort Collins had barely been worthy of the name, it didn’t even have walls.

(those first few years she’d hunted down anyone she could find, trying to figure out where her baby brother went it said he wasn’t dead so where was he and no one had said anything about-)

“They left that out then.” It’s not a question. 

Joseph shifts next to her, uneasy.

“They did,” Joseph says, glancing at her. 

Isaac scrubs a hand over his face, but he doesn’t look surprised. Fred glances at his companions and Sharpe is stone faced, Ms Landisman seems concerned, and Ms Livingston looks a bit like a cat watching a mouse. 

Fred does not appreciate that. 

“Some monsters out if nightmares wiping out a good half of the fort isn’t something they must’ve wanted known, with all the stories from Gettysburg just reaching us. I don’t know what or-or who they were, but it was a bloodbath like nothing I’d seen so-” he gestures, apparently unwilling to reiterate his cowardice. 

He’s not looking at them, old shame in his face and voice, and Sharpe is a tightly strung wire next to him, watching them warily.

Fred looks at Isaac, at the scrapes and calluses on the hands he has clasped in front of himself, fingers twitching like he's used to fidgeting with something, at the scar on his cheek and day old bruise under his tired eyes.

“Why didn’t you come home?” Fred asks.

Isaac chokes put an almost laugh, scrubbing at his face again.

“I was scared. Convinced whatever was behind me was going to catch me. Kill me like the rest. I just ran, didn’t stop. Kept running. I didn’t-I knew they’d either send word that I was dead or deserted. It was…” that awful not laugh again, “easier, I suppose, to be gone. To be someone else. And then it was years later.”

She stares at him, guts cold and curdled. Joseph is a statue beside her. 

\--

(there was more in between, of course, that he will never tell them about. It was a long way to a chapel in rapid city, and not all of that was in miles)

\--

"Easier," Joseph repeats. He's staring at Isaac who won't meet his eyes. Joseph glances down to Isaac's hands, knuckles rough and bruised and scarred. Looks at Isaac, whose whole body is tense like a wire, who drew a gun when being grabbed.

"You thought whatever was chasing you would follow you home, didn't you?"

Isaac straightens up, "Don't-"

"You dumb, self-sacrificial son of a bi-"

"I ain't- I still-"

"Did it catch you?" Fred interrupts. Isaac's friends have been watching all this, tense and quiet and Sharpe looks like he might stab someone if the tension gets worse.

"What?"

"Did whatever you profess to be frightened of catch you? Or did you just run from shadows?"

He stares at her for a moment, then wordlessly unbuttons the top few fastenings on his shirt and tugs is sideways and she can see the start of a long, ropey scar.

"Oh." Fred hears a very soft gasp from one of the other women, but Sharpe ain't so much as blinked. 

"And Joseph don't call Ma a-" Isaac cuts himself off and takes a deep breath. "Is Ma…?"

"She's her regular hell beast self, if that's what you're asking," Joseph replies, and Isaac slumps in relief.

"So that's where you get it from, Matthew," Livingston says in a clumsy attempt to lighten the mood.

"Hey," he replies and Fred realizes that's the second time someone's called him by a different name and that the name she'd heard to be the Reverend's certainly wasn't Monahan.

“Isaac….” she says slowly, but she’s watching his companions’ faces. “....what name are you going by, now?”

".....Matthew," he says, voice soft, "I'm Matthew Mason."

"This Reverend thing a con or did some preacher manage what Ma didn't and cram the good book into that thick skull of yours?"

Sharpe stiffens but Isaac just smiles at her, crooked and almost sheepish.

"Started as one ended up the other," he replies.

\----

He's different. 

(his names stumble back and forth on her tongue, the elder weighted like the headstone it's been)

It feels stupid to think, it’s been fifteen years of God knows what-including becoming a Reverend which she’s still reeling over-and he’s a grown man now instead of a spikey bundle of twigs masquerading a teenager. But.

(isaac had been a firecracker of a boy, loud and brash and cocky enough to run off to join the cavalry)

The man she’s watching move around his kitchen is quiet, friendly but never quite reaching loud. A puppyish sort of playfulness in how he lets the others tug him around, despite having near a head on Sharpe, the tallest of the lot. He reminds her of some of the sheepdogs she’s met, big and bumbling and gentle.

But there’s something else under the kind smile he keeps pulling out, in the glances he keeps casting at her and Joseph, and Fred thinks of the gun he’d pulled.

(those dogs had had big goddamn barks, and bigger teeth)

He reminds her a lot of their mother. 

\--

(something fred hears later)

some fellas tried to pick a fight with the preacher, where he sat smoking on the porch at dusk. they took issue with the porch bein' that of the bella union, took issue with the easy way he spoke with the women, eyes kind and kept to their faces. took issue with the easy way the women spoke back. they took issue with a lot of things.

the preacher just watched them, eyebrow raised and a slow plume of smoke rolling from his mouth. the cherry red end was a tiny beacon in the dark, and easier to shout imprecations at than his shadowed face.

the ladies looked amused.

(there's another man behind the preacher, just a pale eyed shadow in the dark. he looks amused too.)

the preacher waits until the men run out of steam, watching them and steadily breathing out smoke.

"miss katy," he says, when the men pause, "may I borrow one of your shotguns?"

(ain't nobody bothers the preacher like that any more)

\--

When Fred gets back to her hotel room, after, she sits and stares at the wall for a while, and thinks about ghosts, and the awkwardness of misplaced grief.

\--

When Joseph gets back to his hotel room, after, he cleans the pistol he'd been carrying, but never thought to draw, and thinks about misplaced years and old wounds. 

\--

When they get back to the hotel, but before they enter their rooms, he wraps her in a hug and whispers "he's _alive_ ," into her hair, relief sour on his tongue.

\--

(in a home above a church matthew once isaac is sitting up in bed, bible across his knees, clayton half asleep beside him with a pistol under his pillow. 

matthew thinks of guilt, worn smooth by time now shattered glass sharp. he continues reading.

clayton’s thumb sweeps back and forth across the back of matthew’s hand.)

\---

As these things go Al has another task for them not but a few days later. The pay is good and the job seems simple enough-go see why people keep popping up camps where there’s no gold and no oil again.

“Take us with you,” Fred says, and the others recognize the stubborn glint in her eye from the times Matthew’s abruptly dug his heels in over something.

Fred and Joseph go with them.

\----

Cults spring up in the mountains like malformed daisies in the wake of snake abominations and the dead rising. Most are barely worthy of the term, mutterings and paint and utterly harmless.

Others…

\--

Pure bad luck and happenstance has Clayton and Fred separated from the others, worse luck has them outnumbered and caught by some folks looking to call up devils.

Pure intention has Clayton kicking up a snarling fuss, distracting and attention grabbing all the way to the shack and barely a bit of mind is given to Fred.

Pure cruelty is Clayton's own knife, held in the hand of a man he'd kicked one too many times.

\--

"We only need one of you."

\--

Fred is glancing at the door and working on the ropes tied around her ankles and studiously not looking at the corpse to her left. 

Christ she’d gotten Isaac’s friend _killed_ because she wasn’t keeping an eye out well enough and the dumbass had some sort of protective streak a mile wide-had to with her dipshit brother oh _fuck_ -

She refuses to cry. These chucklefucks in their fancy-ass robe things and hats do not get to see Fred Monohan cry and she’s gonna shoot the fucker who took a knife to Sharpe’s throat if Matty don’t get to him first-fucking _fuck_. She pulls just a bit too hard on a section of rope and feels it tighten the wrong way and swears low and vicious. 

She’s so intent on the rope she doesn’t actually notice that the corpse is moving until it’s halfway upright, leaning heavily against the wall.

-

Fred is very proud of herself for not screaming. She freezes instead, hoping whatever the fuck is making Sharpe’s body move doesn’t notice her, her grip white knuckled around the rope. 

The corpse manages to set itself in a seated position against the wall, legs still sprawled awkwardly. Then it looks at her, eyes flat white through a curtain of hair, and she only barely smothers a scream this time. 

Sharpe’s head lolls back against the wall, and it grins at her, crooked and bloody. Something dark and thick leaks from the gash across its neck. 

“What, Monahan, never seen a dead man before?”

-

“..........what the _fuck_ ,” Fred says.

Sharpe ignores her, clumsily stripping off a glove and carefully feeling around his neck, making a disgusted noise as he feels at the collar of his shirt.

“I just fucking bought this,” he grumbles. His voice is an awful wet rasp, and thick dark blood bubbles.

“What the _fuck?_ ” Fred repeats at a slightly higher pitch.

Sharpe just looks toward her, eyes still that creepy white. He looks amused. “You and Matthew have the same tone when you’re panicking, you know that?”

“I am not panicking,” Fred hissing, “and you are a corpse that just sat up you Lazarus fucker-”

She stops.

Sharpe raises an eyebrow. “Penny dropped, huh?”

“You’re enjoying this.”

“Only a little. Usually folks who see already know or end up in a grave,” he replies, calm and easy. 

He blinks and his eyes are back to blue, and that’s somehow worse above the gory slash along his neck because he looks normal. 

He looks alive and the falseness of it sets cold hooks in her sternum.

“What are you?”

Sharpe shrugs, “Not a damn clue.”

She stares at him. She’s aware she looks a fool, wide eyed with rope still around her hands and feet and hair a mess. 

She's tied up in a shack making conversation with a corpse and the corpse is talking back. 

\--

Clayton resists the urge to needle her more. The initial red hot agony had subsided but talking with a sliced throat was fuckin unpleasant. 

Matthew was going to give him so much shit. He'd just gotten stitched up and started to heal from the wound on his chest and now this. 

(what dregs of luck God had seen fit to leave him with he'd used up crawling out of his grave with his own mind intact)

They’d taken his guns, which he was not best pleased about, but had missed the small knife in his boot.

\--

The trouble with reputations is that it requires leaving people alive.

\--

"Now, boys, if you could kindly put your weapons down everyone might get to walk away in one piece," Matthew says, earnest and smiling over the barrel of his shotgun. 

"Too late for that," one of the men mumbles, and another by him sniggers.

"Pardon?" 

The laughter cuts off, and several of the men start to look nervous. The one who'd spoken before puffs up slightly, too stupid or too proud to see what has his fellows backing away.

"Cut the bastard's throat, wasn't worth the trouble to keep him alive."

The Reverend blinks once, slow and still smiling behind the oblivion waiting in the barrel of a gun.

He fires. 

\--

Some gunfire and screaming later and the cultists are either bleeding out or pinned down.

It had been rather terrifyingly efficient, in Joseph's opinion. He himself is aiming a rifle at the cluster of three of the cultists who were still breathing were in, as were the two ladies. Ms Livingston has a Colt out and aimed and Joseph is trying real hard to convince himself he hadn't seen her throw what looked like a ball of lighting at someone earlier.

The smoking corpse he can see off to his right is not helping.

"Now, gentlemen," the Reverend is saying in a rumble like Hell given voice, barrel of his shotgun inches from the ring leader's head, "We're not going to have any further trouble, I trust?"

It's easier to think of him as the Reverend, Joseph thinks, not finding a trace of his bright eyed younger brother in this ruthless and smiling stranger. 

(there's something eager there, under the genial expression that raises the hair on the back of his neck)

“You went and had the party without us,” says an awful voice, wet and thick. Joseph flinches violently, head snapping over to see Sharpe and Fred-thank God- walking up but.

Oh that was blood, all over Sharpe’s neck. 

What in the goddamn hell.

\--

Watching her brother fuss over an apparently undead gunslinger with a great big hole in his throat is one of the most surreal things she’s ever seen. 

If it weren’t for the shotgun set across Isa-Matthew’s back and that it was a slit throat he was fussing over it’d look a lot like her cousin fussing at his wife when she got herself but good while cooking once-

Oh.

Fred rethinks several tidbits over the past day or so.

Ooooooh. Okay then. 

(she didn’t think reverend’s could get married but maybe that’s a specific kind of priest)

She can see Joseph putting the pieces together too, judging by the slightly goofy grin he can’t quite keep off his face.

She leans over to mumble “Two for one deal” in Joseph’s ear and he only barely stifles a snort of slightly hysterical laughter and Ms Landisman glances over at them warily and Fred just flaps a hand at her.

“Y’all have quite the adventures,” Fred says.

Ms Landisman smiles at her, rifle held easily in her hands, “That we do, dear. That we do.”

\--

They stay in Deadwood for a while, after. Not too long, they’ve only so many supplies and Fred’s never been so leery of wearing out their welcome at a town before. 

(and she’s always hated staying put in one place, her mother liked to joke she was just a tumbleweed in human form sometimes and would wither if she put down roots)

She wants to come back. They want to come back. She wants to hear all the years missed, all the stupid little things instead of just the broad strokes. Matthew wants theirs too.

They’ll write him, often as they can, they’ll come back this way, as often as they can.

She won’t have the last letter from her brother be a notice of desertion anymore. 

(he hugs like he’s trying to remember the weight of them, memorize bone and muscle and breath hugging him back. they both do the same)

\--

She has a brother who's a priest out in Deadwood.

Their Mama is gonna be so proud.

\-------


End file.
